Being Able to Go Up a Few Thousand Feet Wasn't Good Enough...

SkyChaser

SkyChaser

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SkyChaser
...and I couldn't afford a multiengine rating or a jet to go up higher, so I decided to increase my range of altitude by going down. :biggrin:

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I finished up my open water certification today! If I add motorcycling, I think I can complete the trifecta of "hobbies which freak out normal (boring) people and my parents"...
 
SkyChaser said:
...and I couldn't afford a multiengine rating or a jet to go up higher, so I decided to increase my range of altitude by going down. :biggrin:

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I finished up my open water certification today! If I add motorcycling, I think I can complete the trifecta of "hobbies which freak out normal (boring) people and my parents"...
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Sport jumping in that list?
 
SkyChaser said:
...and I couldn't afford a multiengine rating or a jet to go up higher, so I decided to increase my range of altitude by going down. :biggrin:

View attachment 139431

I finished up my open water certification today! If I add motorcycling, I think I can complete the trifecta of "hobbies which freak out normal (boring) people and my parents"...
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Welcome to the bubble club!
Next, get the advanced certification and the nitrox one. Things are a lot more fun below 60 feet, and it's nice to be able to stay there for more than 15 minutes.

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Congrats!! While it might freak out your parents, it doesn’t bother your in-laws one little bit. :biggrin:

(Let me know when you’re ready to add on automobile racing...)
 
Albany Tom said:
Very cool, congrats! Just stay out of caves, though, huh?
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Um. Caves can be pretty cool. I had a chance to dive some years ago.

But really, the best was the day we arrived on St Barths. I went to a dive shop when we arrived and signed up for that afternoon. It was going to be a wreck dive. Boring! Never been to excited about those.

As it turned out, the yacht was the Non-Stop, which had gone down with its owner during hurricane Hugo several months earlier. The day I arrived was the first day the wreck was available for public diving. It was incredible. Mostly intact internally, we swam from room to room. Beautiful staterooms. China on the floors near dining tables with linens. A piano for entertainment.

We three were the first doing a public dive. Me, the dive master’s best friend, and the dive master - who had been the one who had recovered the body after the hurricane.
 
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Never got into scuba (wouldn't mind, just hasn't happened) but I did a lot of free diving and spearfishing. Drift diving for stripers in the Race, for those who know Long Island Sound.
 
Albany Tom said:
Very cool, congrats! Just stay out of caves, though, huh?
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For now, anyway! Maybe we'll go for the cave diving cert in a few years. Probably not any time soon, though, as I am pretty sure all-in it would come pretty close to - or exceed the cost of - that ME rating mentioned earlier. :cool:
 
Just make sure you don't go from those negative altitudes to positive too quickly. I had one pilot friend who managed to get bent.
 
Sweet cave dive not deep is “The Cracks” a network of caves in Puerto Rico. Can be claustrophobic for some.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Sweet cave dive not deep is “The Cracks” a network of caves in Puerto Rico. Can be claustrophobic for some.
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Before last week, my last dive was probably more than ten years ago. We're going to spend some time diving off the FL coast and some springs (some basic open water diving) before we start pursuing more ratings. @SkyChaser is still new and I'm incredibly rusty.
 
Congrats @SkyChaser !

by coincidence, I'm working through a SCUBA refresher at the moment, in parallel with my wife and three kids in their OW diver training. They're about halfway through the "bookwork".

I did a lot of diving a long time ago. I used to hold a Divemaster/Assistant instructor cert through SSI, and I'm certified tech diver up to full technical trimix, including several gas blending and equipment certs.... but haven't logged anything in a couple of decades! That's why I went ahead and signed up for the refresher....o tgive me a chance to play with weighting and my gear, and to just get re-acquainted...along with learning about what they are teaching my kids. So far I can confirm that training is a lot different in many ways now, but everything else so far really is the same.

Anyway...it seems to me that a lot of pilots gravitate to and enjoy SCUBA. It's like pure flight in some ways! Have you done any drift diving yet?

I was remembering just a few days ago about a re-occuring dream I used to have a very long time ago. I hope that after doing a bit of diving again it'll come back! In the dreams, I could float with neutral buoyancy in air. For example, if I was in the front yard but wanted to go to my back yard, I could just push off a little jump in the direction I wanted to go while at the same time sort of 'willing' a slight positive bouyancy....just like when you ascend a little when filling your lungs on SCUBA. It was like a wonderful virtual reality of flight!

My family's OW checkout dives will be at Rainbow River, which is a really easy and shallow freshwater drift dive. It's been a long time since I used to go there with classes and I'm looking forward to doing it with my kids!
 
Brad W said:
Have you done any drift diving yet?

My family's OW checkout dives will be at Rainbow River, which is a really easy and shallow freshwater drift dive. It's been a long time since I used to go there with classes and I'm looking forward to doing it with my kids!
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We were at Rainbow River yesterday for her last two open-water check-out dives! We dove Devil's Den last Saturday for the first two.
 
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2-Bit Speed said:
Before last week, my last dive was probably more than ten years ago. We're going to spend some time diving off the FL coast and some springs (some basic open water diving) before we start pursuing more ratings. @SkyChaser is still new and I'm incredibly rusty.
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BTW, I'm not "cave certified." Didn't even know there is such a certification. Just a basic recreational diver. Not particularly experienced. Like Sky King and pilots, I grew up with Mike Nelson (se Hunt) and just wanted to do it. It's something to do on a Caribbean vacation, nothing more. The dive master knew this and it was a one-on-one rather than a group dive.
 
Got my open water cert while I was stationed in Okinawa in the 80s. Also learned to fly there. Okinawa spoiled me because when I got back to the states, we took a boat dive trip in Mexico which sucked. I haven’t been diving since
 
Half Fast said:
FIFY

Cave diving is enjoyable and can be done safely, but it’s suicidal for those without cave training.

(I’m certified Full Cave through IANTD.)
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:) I respect everyone's personal decisions, but it's still nuts to me. I'll be on the boat enjoying a ham sandwich. Caves remind me too much of mines, and I've been in mines enough (exactly twice) to know that's not where I want to be.
 
Half Fast said:
FIFY

Cave diving is enjoyable and can be done safely, but it’s suicidal for those without cave training.

(I’m certified Full Cave through IANTD.)
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i'm not cave certified, but my technical instructor that took me through all my tech diving certs (also IANTD) was an avid cave diver. One of my training dives was done in a cave. Can't remember for sure the lesson or purpose, but I think it might have been one of my first forrays into diving with double tanks. Anyway, it was a fun experience and I'm very glad that I had the chance to do it...but caving is not really my jam. I can definitely see the appeal though!
 
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